The present invention relates to communication control/setting for communicating control data between an audio mixer and an external device related to audio signal processing.
Among the various conventionally-known digital mixers are ones which are provided with a terminal (remote terminal) for connecting a particular external device to the mixer. For example, a head amplifier (HA) marketed by the assignee of the instant application under the trade name “AD8HR” is connectable, via a remote terminal, to a digital mixer marketed by the same assignee of the instant application under the trade name “M7CL”. Heretofore, it has been conventional to fixedly set, at a designing phase or stage of the mixer, a dedicated communication protocol for performing communication of control data between an external device to be connected to a remote terminal and the mixer. Thus, control data can be communicated between the external device and the mixer, by a user (human operator) of the mixer only connecting the external device to the remote terminal of the mixer without performing particular communication setting operation. Further, various settings for the external device, such as a head amplifier (HA) can be performed by the mixer via the remote terminal. However, with the communication protocol fixed in advance at the designing phase of the mixer, external devices connectable to the remote terminal would be limited only to particular products that are compatible with the communication protocol (see, for example, http://www2.yamaha.co.jp/manual/pdfpa/japan/mixers/m7cl_ja_om.pdf, which will hereinafter be referred to as “relevant non-patent literature”).
In a case where a wireless microphone is used as an audio signal input source to a mixer, a wireless microphone receiver that wirelessly receives input from the wireless microphone is connected to the mixer via an audio cable so that audio signals received by the receiver from the wireless microphone are supplied to the mixer over the audio cable.
In the case where a wireless microphone is employed, it is necessary to monitor states of the wireless microphone, such as remaining battery power, communication frequency band, communication condition and signal gain level or microphone level, in preparation for unforeseen troubles, such as battery power exhaustion and deterioration of the communication condition of the microphone. For such purposes, the wireless microphone receiver possesses control data indicative of states of the wireless microphone (such as remaining battery power, communication frequency band, communication condition and microphone level), so that monitoring of states of the wireless microphone and setting of various parameters, such as setting of a communication frequency band, microphone level and name of the microphone, can be performed by the wireless microphone receiver.
Further, by connecting a personal computer (PC), which executes a wireless-microphone monitoring application program, to the wireless microphone receiver via a LAN cable or the like and transferring control data of the wireless microphone to the PC, it is possible to perform monitoring of states of the wireless microphone and setting of various parameters can also be performed by the PC.
Because, with the digital mixer disclosed in the above-described relevant non-patent literature, external devices connectable to the remote terminal are limited only to particular products that are compatible with the communication protocol as set forth above, it has been impossible to connect a wireless microphone receiver to the mixer via the remote terminal, i.e. to connect the wireless microphone receiver and mixer in such a manner that control data can be communicated between the receiver and the mixer. As a consequence, monitoring of states of a wireless microphone, setting of various parameters of the wireless microphone, etc. can not be performed in the disclosed digital mixer.
Further, generally, in sound systems in concert halls etc., a wireless microphone receiver is installed near a wireless microphone (e.g., on a side of a stage) and remotely from an installed position of a mixer, and, because a wireless-microphone monitoring application program has a high technical specialty or technicality, it can not be operated easily by a person other than a specialized human operator (e.g., mixer operator). Therefore, monitoring of states of the wireless microphone, setting of various parameters of the wireless microphone, etc. have been operation performed by a human operator specialized in the wireless microphone different from the mixer operator.
If a suitable communication protocol is defined in advance for use in communication of control data between a digital mixer and an external device, such as a wireless microphone receiver, communication of control data may be performed between the digital mixer and the wireless microphone receiver via a communication network, such as a LAN. However, this approach can be applied only to particular devices (such as device of a particular model or of a particular manufacture) compatible with the predefined communication protocol. Besides, various external devices (such as head amplifiers, wireless microphone receivers and power amplifiers) are manufactured/marketed by many manufacturers. Therefore, fixedly setting a variety of communication protocols, to be used for external devices of various models and manufacturers, in association with such external devices of various models and manufacturers in order to sufficiently deal with a variety of currently-available external devices would take extremely great amounts of time and labor and extremely high cost.